Raijintek Morpheus vs. DirectCU II - ASUS Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II

The R9 290X GPU is known to become rather hot and cooling this chip with a reference and even a custom aircooler can be quite a challenge. In almost any case you will see thermal throttling. In this article we're going to compare the results of an ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II Cooled by Raijintek Morpheus versus the same card with its stock ASUS DirectCU II cooler. At this point a little teaser: the differences can be as high as 19 percent!﻿

As we already mentioned, in this article we're going to have a closer look at the differences between
the factory cooled ASUS R9 290X
DirectCU II and the same card equipped with Raijinteks new Morpheus VGA
cooler. First of all we're going to have a
closer look at both, the Raijintek Morpheus as well as the ASUS Direct CU II cooler
to understand the differences. Afterwards we will run the cards through our set of recent games with stock
clocks as well as overclocked. Apparently we
will also show you some temperatures.

ASUS R9 290X Direct CU II -
Raijintek Morpheus

With the Morpheus Raijintek has
introduced an aftermarket VGA cooler, that is compatible with most cards from
AMD as well as NVIDIA. This particular cooler features a whopping 12 heatpipes
and each and every one of them has six milimiter diameter. Other than that
overall manufacturing quality is on a high level and there is for instance a
nickel plated copper base plate with mirror finish. In fact, the entire cooler
has been nickel plated, which definitely adds to the looks and also to the
surface quality. As you can see from the pictures we find a rich bundle to mount
the Morpheus on different graphic cards. Included in the delivery are thermal
pads and three differently sized aluminum heatsinks for memory and VRM area,
which are compatible with HD 7970 and R9 290/290X reference cards. Raijinteks
Morpheus VGA cooler is actually compatible with AMD: R9 290/290X reference, R9
280X reference, R9 270/270X reference as well as ASUS DirectCU II card. In terms
of compatibility we find the following GPUs on the list: GTX 650, 650 Ti, 660,
660 Ti,760, 770, 780 and 780 Ti. What’s not included in the bundle are the fans,
whereas the cooler itself weighs 515g and measures 254 x 98 x 44 millimeter.
Other than that block features two years warranty and mounting the Morpheus is
rather easy thanks to the decent manual.

ASUS R9 290X Direct CU II - Aircooling
DirectCU II

This version of the DirectCU II cooler comes with no less than five
heatpipes, which feature a GSG shape. There is one heatpipe with a massive
diameter of ten millimeter and other than there are two more with eight
millimeter diameter and another two which measure six millimeters. The heatpipes have been nickel plated and are in direct contact with the GPU core. Soldered to the heatpipes you find the fin stack which is being provided with fresh air via two 95mm fans. The fan closer to the I/O shield is a hybrid axial/radial fan ASUS like to call "CoolTech". They claim that this fan is able to provide a higher airflow than standard axial or radial fans at the same noise level. In case of the second fan you find a standard axial fan. Both fans are being manufactured by Everflow and strangely share the same model name, T129215SU.
Overall the cooler is well made and the finish is on a very reasonable level too.
This cooler definitely plays in another league than the reference cooler from
AMD. But still, even this custom aircooler is just about able to not make the
290X throttle at stock clocks.